Among the Betrayed

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Nina stood beside Lee Grant, pulling corn from a row of stalks.

"Leave the small ears to grow," Lee cautioned. "We only need enough for the feast tonight."

"Only?" Nina laughed. "There'll be twenty people there!"

"Forty ears, then," Lee countered. "That's not much. Back home, when my mom was canning corn, we used to pick—"

"What? Forty million?" Nina teased.

In the days since she'd been caught, she'd been staying at Mr. Hendricks's house with Percy, Matthias, and Alia. But she'd spent a lot of time with Lee and already listened to dozens of "back home" stories. She didn't know what it was like at Harlow School for Girls, but at Hendricks, boys were not pretending so much to be their fake identities. They were telling the truth more.

Nina jerked another ear from a stalk.

"Anyway, forget forty ears," she said. "If you're figuring two per person, that's only thirty-eight. I don't think I'll ever be able to eat corn again, not after the way you scared me in the garden last week, midbite."

"More for me," Lee said, clowning a selfish grab around all the corn they'd picked so far.

Nina wondered if this was how normal children acted — children who'd never had to hide. She guessed she'd have a chance to find out now. She, Percy, Matthias, and Alia were being sent on to another school, one where third children with fake I.D.'s mixed with firstborns and secondborns. That was why they were having a feast tonight, a combination of a celebration and a farewell.

"Given how things happened, Harlow School is prob' ably not the best place for you anymore," Mr. Hendricks had told Nina.

Nina had had another flash of remembering that hor-rific canyon of eyes, watching her walk to her doom.

"I… I think I can forgive the other girls," she had said. "Now."

"But are they ready to forgive you?" Mr. Hendricks asked. "No matter how much you reassure them, how much the officials reassure them, there will always be someone who suspects that you just got off, that you really were working with Jason. They haven't… grown up like you have."

And Nina understood. She wasn't the same lovesick, easily terrified child she'd been at Harlow School. That was why she liked talking to Lee now. He'd grown up a lot, too. The other boys looked up to him. They didn't even call him Lee anymore. He was mostly L.G. — and they said it reverently.

Nina still called him Lee. She didn't like too many things changing.

"Nina," Lee said now, slowly peeling back the husk of an ear of corn to check for rot. "Before you leave tomorrow, there's something I've been wanting to tell you."

"What?"

Lee tossed the ear of corn onto the pile with the rest. It must have been okay.

"I've been thinking about Jason," he said.

Nina stiffened just hearing that name. She might be able to forgive her friends at Harlow, but she wasn't ready to forgive Jason.

"So?" she asked.

"Well, I was thinking about what I heard him say on the phone to the Population Police that night he was turning everyone in. He made it sound like you were working with him."

"I know," Nina said. "That's how I ended up in prison." She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice.

In one clean jerk Lee pulled another ear from another stalk.

"But I don't think Jason was saying that to get you in trouble. He didn't expect to be arrested, to have you arrested. He meant for the illegal third children with fake I.D.'s to be arrested. I think… I think he was actually trying to save you."

Nina reeled backward, stunned beyond words. Lee took one look at Nina's face and kept explaining.

"Don't you see?" he said. "It wouldn't have made any sense for Jason to say you were working with him if he wanted to get you in trouble. He thought he — and you— were going to be rewarded. He was… he was maybe trying to protect you from ever being turned in by anyone else. See, if years from now someone accused you of being ille-gal, he could pop up and say, 'Nina? How could Nina be an exnay? She helped turn them in!'"

Lee did such a good job of imitating Jason's voice that Nina could almost believe. But only almost.

"Jason was doing something wrong. Evil. He wanted innocent kids to die," she said harshly. She pulled so hard on an ear of corn that the whole stalk came out of the ground.

Lee frowned but didn't say anything about his precious cornstalk.

"Yeah. Believe me, I was pretty mad at Jason myself. But I'm just saying — I don't think he was all bad. I think he, um, really liked you. And that was why he was trying to save you."

Nina stood still, trying to make sense of Lee's words. It flip'flopped everything she'd thought for the past few months. How could she accept Lee's explanation? How could Jason have been so evil yet tried to save her?

For a minute she almost believed. Then she remembered.

"Mr. Talbot had a tape," she said dully. "Of Jason confessing. And he was lying and saying it was all my fault, that I was the one who wanted to turn in the exnays."

"Oh, Mr. Talbot could have faked that tape," Lee said. "I've seen him fake pictures."

"But it was Jason's voice," Nina said. "I heard him. I heard the tape!"

Lee turned back to the garden.

"Go ask him," he said with a shrug.

Nina stood still for a moment, then she dropped her corn and took off running. Hope swelled in her heart. She burst into Mr. Hendricks's cottage and dashed into the living room, where Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Talbot were conferring.

"The tape," she said. "Of Jason betraying me. Lying. Was it real?"

Mr. Talbot turned around slowly, looked at her blankly.

"You had a tape," she repeated breathlessly. "In prison. Of Jason saying it was my idea to betray exnays, my idea to turn them in to the Population Police. Did he really say that? Or did you fake the tape?"

Mr. Talbot blinked.

"Does it matter?" he asked.

"Of course it matters!" Nina shrieked.

Mr. Talbot raised one eyebrow.

"Why?" he said.

Nina had so many reasons, they jumbled together.

"If he didn't betray me, if he was really trying to help me — then he really loved me. Then Aunty Zenka was right, and love is everything, and the world's a good place. And I can be happy remembering him. But if he betrayed me — how can I think about the time we had together without hating him? How can I ever trust anyone, ever again?"

"You've believed for months that he betrayed you," Mr. Talbot said. 'And you still trusted Percy, Matthias, and Alia. You've been acting like you trust Lee and Trey and Mr. Hendricks and me. Don't you?"

"Yes, but…" Nina couldn't explain. "Maybe I shouldn't trust you. You've lied to me a lot."

Nina was surprised when both Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks burst out laughing. "It's not funny," she protested.

Mr. Talbot stopped laughing, and sighed. "Nina, we live in complicated times. I would have loved it if that first time I talked to you in your prison cell, I could have come straight out and said, 'Here's the deal. I hate the Population Police. What about you?' And it would have been great if I could have been sure that you would give me an honest answer. But — can you really see that happening? Don't you see how muddy every' one's intentions get, how people end up doing the wrong things for the right reasons, and the right things for the wrong reasons — and all any of us can do is try our hardest and have faith that somehow, some' day, it will all work out?"

Nina looked down at her hands, still splotched with mud from the garden. She looked back up.

"Was the tape fake or not?" she asked again.

Mr. Talbot looked straight back at her.

"It was fake," he said quietly. "Some of our tech people spliced it together."

A grin burst out over Nina's face. "So Lee was right. Jason did love me," she whispered in wonderment.

Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks exchanged glances in such a way that Nina felt like she was back with Percy, Matthias, and Alia.

"So that's enough for you?" Mr. Talbot asked. "It doesn't matter that Jason was trying to get other kids killed? You don't care about the evil he did as long as he loved you?"

Nina's smile slipped. Why did Mr. Talbot have to con' fuse everything again?

"No, no," she said. "That's not what I believe. This just means — he wasn't all bad. He's dead anyway. So I can. . hold on to the good memories and let go of being mad at him." She wondered what had made Jason the way he was. She remembered how desperate she'd felt in the jail cell when she'd been so tempted to betray Percy, Matthias, and Alia. What if Jason had been even more desperate? What if he hadn't wanted to betray anyone, either, but had been too weak to resist?

It was odd to think of Jason as weak. She could actually feel sorry for him now. She could hold on to that forever, the way she held on to memories of Gran and the aunties.

"Nina," Mr. Talbot said. "Jason isn't dead. I thought they had executed him, but… it turns out that another faction of the Population Police thought he might still be useful.

I've only recently found out that he's working for the Population Police in some top secret project. Something we who oppose the Government are very concerned about." He paused for a second, as if waiting for the news to sink in. "So, what does that information do for you? Are you going to rush to his side, to help him, because he loves you?"

Nina stared at Mr. Talbot in amazement. "He's alive?" she whimpered. "He's alive?" Strangely, this seemed like bad news. If Jason were dead, she could go all misty-eyed remembering him, daydream' ing about what might have been, just like Aunty Zenka mooning over one of her books. But with him alive and working for the Population Police—"I have to stay mad," she said aloud. "I can't ever forgive him." "Bitter is a bad way to live," Mr. Talbot said. Nina remembered that he had lost Jen, that he had rea-son to stay angry at the Government forever. She sank down onto one of Mr. Hendricks's couches. This was all going to overwhelm her. She was just a little girl who'd spent most of her life hiding, listening to old ladies' fool' ish stories. Or had they been foolish? All the fairy tales Gran and the aunties had told her were about people staying true to what was right in the face of great adver-sity. She'd heard the wrong part of the stories if she thought she was just supposed to sit around like a princess, waiting for some prince to fall in love with her.

She looked straight at Mr. Talbot.

"I don't want to stay bitter. But I want to help you— what can I do to make sure Jason's project fails?"

Mr. Talbot almost smiled. Nina felt like she'd passed another test.

"We'll see," he said. "We'll see."

Nina went back out toward Lee's garden to finish pick' ing corn. The sun was setting now, casting long shadows over the path. Just about every step Nina took alternated between sunlight and dark. Nina's thoughts bounced back and forth just as dramatically.

Jason did love me. That's what really matters…. But he was still evil…. Why did I say I'd help Mr. Talbot oppose the Government?… How could I not have said that, after everything Mr. Talbot did for me?… What can I possibly do, anyway?

As Nina approached the garden she saw Lee waiting for her there. Whatever she did for Mr. Talbot, she realized, she would not be alone. Lee would probably be involved, and so would Percy and Matthias and Alia.

Nina remembered how alone she'd felt in her jail cell, all those months ago. Feeling abandoned and betrayed was worse than hunger, worse than cold, worse than the hand-cuffs on her wrists. But she hadn't been abandoned; she had only accidentally been betrayed.

"Well?" Lee said as soon as she got close enough to hear. "Was I right?"

It took Nina a moment to remember what he was talk-ing about: the tape. Jason's betrayal.

"It's a long story," Nina said. "And it's not over yet."

But part of her story was over — the part where she was innocent and stupid and useless. She'd been so worried before that people might not remember her as Elodie— sweet, loving, little girl Elodie. But she'd outgrown Elodie. She'd outgrown Nina the ninny, too. She was ready now to make whatever name she carried one that people could respect and revere.

Like Jen Talbot's.

"I think… I think I just volunteered to help Mr. Talbot and Mr. Hendricks fight the Population Police," she said.

Lee's gaze was steady and unfailing.

"Good," he said. "Welcome to the club."